For the second consecutive year, Sydney Airport has been named the nation’s top Capital City Airport at the AAA’s prestigious National Airport Industry Awards.

The award recognises the airport’s ongoing commitment to providing a world-class passenger experience, sustainability initiatives, community investment and industry-leading innovation.

Sydney Airport also won the Technology award for its landmark facial recognition trial.

The ‘couch-to-gate’ biometrics processing trial is one of the most ambitious in the world and brings the global aviation industry a significant step closer to passengers’ faces serving as their passports and boarding passes.

Sydney Airport CEO Geoff Culbert said: “We’ve been focused on innovation and technology to drive greater efficiency across the airport and provide a world-class customer experience and we’re very grateful to our industry peers for their recognition.

“However, there is still plenty of work to do and we remain committed to working with our airline partners, key stakeholders and the broader community to continue finding new ways to improve.

“Sydney is one of the greatest cities in the world and we’ll continue working hard to ensure we are an airport of which Sydney and NSW can be proud.”

AAA Chief Executive Officer Caroline Wilkie said: “Sydney Airport has once again shown a constant focus on their passengers while also playing an active role in the state’s visitor economy.

“The facial recognition trial is a great example of an airport leading the way to adopt new innovation that makes the passenger’s journey through the airport faster and easier. The AAA congratulates the Sydney Airport team on their outstanding and ongoing work to enhance the passenger experience.”

In addition to its biometrics trial, Sydney Airport has recently made a number of other customer-focused improvements. These include introducing self-service kiosks and automated bag drop at T1 International, implementing a Quiet Terminal initiative at T1, expanding the list of available languages on its digital wayfinding kiosks, and enabling passengers to receive personalised flight updates via Twitter and Facebook Messenger.

Sydney Airport was also the first organisation outside greater China to introduce mobile navigation app Baidu Maps, while also making indoor Google Maps and Apple Maps available.